BEST Sniper rifle on Fallout 4

This article contains instructions about BEST Sniper rifle on Fallout 4 PC Game:

A player's choice of sniping weapon is going to fall into a matter of personal taste and needs. I personally use the Pipe Bolt Action Rifle as my sniping weapon of choice most of the time. but I will try to pin point the good and bad aspects of a few weapons I've tried out. Bear in mind, this is my opinion only, and your choice of sniping weapon is, in the end, your choice.

These rules apply to the text that follows: This assumes that you can mod your preferred weapon to your tastes, and it excludes all legendary weapons of all kinds.

Your main choices for sniper weapons will be the Pipe Bolt Action Rifle, Hunting Rifle, Combat Rifle, Plasma Rifle, Laser Rifle, and Laser Musket. (This list is not all inclusive, as I am not sure there are not other legitimate options later down the game road)

First, the pro's and con's.

Pro's.

Combat Rifle: Sixth in power. Semi automatic, uses .45 rounds early on, and can be modded later to use .308 rounds. Pretty quick fire rate, can be suppressed, and has a large magazine capacity.

Hunting Rifle: Fourth in power. Uses .308 rounds, can be modded later to use .50 cal rounds and can be geared with a silencer, has lots of mod options, and pretty much is an all around decent sniper choice.

Laser Musket: First in power when cranked to max (assuming you're using a three crank or more mod). Uses fusion cells, fairly easy to gain the perks needed to mod out this weapon. To further power the shot coming from this weapon, crank it till it stops cranking.

Laser Rifle: third most powerful. Accurate, lots of mod options, uses fusion cells, is one of the lightest sniping weapons on this list, and fires rapidly for a sniping weapon, allowing you to pick off other nearby targets before they get into cover.

Pipe Bolt Action Rifle: fifth in power. Uses .308 rounds, can be modded later to use .50 cal rounds, and can be equipped with a suppressor, and has a good assortment of mods that can be gained cheaply early on through the gun nut perk, and is one of the lightest options in this list.

Combat Rifle: Very heavy, high requirements to mod out properly, loads .45 rounds early on, requires a mod to fire .308 rounds, and the lowest per shot damage of the sniping weapons listed here.

Hunting Rifle: Heavy when fully modded, even with a light frame mod,and the fire rate is what you'd expect from a bolt action weapon. Properly modding this weapon requires higher level perks.

Laser Musket: You get one shot. That's it. After that, you have to crank the weapon again. Not a terrible thing, considering that your first well placed shot should easily terminate your target, but it doesn't help making those follow up shots. Also, the weapon cannot be suppressed and gives your position away. The musket is also pretty heavy, weighing in around 20+ pounds after modding.

Laser Rifle: Cannot be suppressed in any way.

Pipe Bolt Action Rifle: Aesthetically speaking, it looks like en elongated piece of crap. Fire rate is abysmal, slower than even the Hunting Rifle, so follow up shots are not usually feasible.

Plasma Rifle: Cannot be suppressed in any way.

My Sniping weapon of choice for most situations: The Pipe Bolt Action Sniper Rifle. Reasons: Though it looks like crap, it is the lightest sniping weapon that can be suppressed. When sniping, I plan out one well placed shot into someone's head, then back off if I can to wait for my next opportunity, so I don't often need to worry about follow up shots most of the time. Fully modded, the Pipe Bolt action isn't that far behind the Hunting rifle (only about 5 points difference) while saving around 10 pounds of weight (I tend to pack rat a bit, which mainly revolves around a few extra guns). The weight I save allows me to carry a few choice back up weapons in case I end up in a pinch, and to pick up a few extra odds and ends here and there for my budding community. For those situations I feel I need some serious raw sniping damage, I turn to the Laser Musket. I don't carry it around typically though, because it weighs so much (and I have a habit of making low strength characters in the fallout series).

Anyway - The only real answer is whatever lengendaries happen to drop. Get lucky and find a gun that adds 50 rad damage on top of its own? Yeah.. that's significant.

Yes, suppressor on my sniper rifle, because for a few crucial seconds, after I've shot my first target, I have a field of confused human targets looking around, that I can get a second, maybe even a third sneak attack in, able to drop them as well. This doesn't work as well against animals and ghouls, as they tend to run right at you no matter what after you take your first shot.

Also, I did state the list was not all inclusive.

Gauss Rifle vs .50 call Hunting Rifle. In one hand you have Gauss who have 552 dmg (max out ofc) and also its a normal dmg not a energy/gamma dmg but in other hand you cant really shot to far distance enemies becouse energy bullet travel some time and also every shot what you get need to be charged so it will take some time. I would probably take it with normal sight and fight againts close targets but that charge rate is just ugh ... i know you can spam it but amm for this gun is kinda rare.

.50 call Hunting Rifle is best choice in mine opinion. You get 205 dmg so less then Gauss Rifle but bullet travel instantly so there is no problem againts far targets and with Sniper Perk you can take few targets without a probelm.

Plasma is just meh becouse it have bullet travel like gauss rifle, it have energy and bullet dmg so its not good for all monsters and what is the bigest problem ... you dont have silencer.

I dont know who said that "Pipe Rifle" is a good choice. I max out one and get only 62 dmg.

Also if you think about finding good legendary then i found 3 good ones: - bullets explode on inpact doing 15 dmg area effect dmg (good againts "crab" eggs and just giving you 15 extra dmg) - +40 radiation dmg (or something like that, but i dont really like it. I taste it few times and explosive sniper was just better but who know) - 25% faster fire rate, 15% faster reload (well it didnt do much with mine recoil and reload so i stay with mine explosiv)

And I think (im not sure) there is legendary sniper rifle with bonus to ignore 30% of target armor and energy resistance.

Maybe there is double dmg on full health enemies with sniper rifle but i never found one.

BTW Sniper Rifle with "additional projectal" would be baaad idea. I found one weapon with that bonus and now im using it as a shotgun cause its supper not accurate but dmg is just sweet ... every time when some one try to rush me up i pop up this monster.

The other one is one I've sold a long time ago, but it was set up with all the best mods, .50 cal ammo, and it had the Legendary Prefix for doing double damage if the target had 100% health or something along those lines. But even that paled in comparison to even a vanilla Gauss Rifle.

Just gonna point out the damage values:

+100% Damage from either Rank 5 Heavy Gunner or Rifleman (don't know which one effects it, had both) +100% Damage from the fact it fires two shots in one +50% Damage from Rank 3 Mister Sandman, since it has a suppressor +25% Damage from Rank 3 Lone Wanderer +15% Damage from Rank 3 Bloody Mess +15% Damage from Rank 3 Lady Killer (but only against females) +25% Damage if you wanted to be a prick and use Psycho with it, though not factored into that picture.

That thing hits for 530% of that total damage with a sneak attack. It's not even fair.